Last night there was a severe earthquake in Nepal. There are 128 deaths so far, but the number could continue to rise.
Kathmandu – A strong earthquake shook Nepal last night. According to measurements from the National Earthquake Monitoring Center (NEMRC), the quake had a magnitude of 6.4 and occurred at 11:47 p.m. local time. The number of deaths is already 128, plus dozens of injured. The number of victims could still rise, especially since there was initially no confirmed information from several areas cut off from the outside world. The earthquake was also felt in neighboring India, including in the capital New Delhi, as the “Times of India” and other Indian media reported.
Earthquake shakes Nepal: disaster can be seen in pictures and videos
Video footage on online services showed residents trying to free people from the rubble of collapsed houses in the dark. Damaged or completely collapsed clay buildings can be seen, as well as people spending time outdoors.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal expressed his “deep sadness” at the “human and material damage” caused by the earthquake on the online service X, formerly Twitter. He said the quake occurred in the town of Ramidanda in the Jajarkot region in the west of the country. Three security services were mobilized to “immediately rescue and care for the injured.” Because it was the middle of the night and information spread slowly, Kamal expected the number of victims to rise.
Not the first tragedy that Nepal has experienced this year. Earlier this year there was a plane crash in Nepal that killed dozens.
Geological plates meet in Nepal, which is why earthquakes occur again and again
According to the US Earthquake Observatory USGS, the quake occurred at a depth of 18 kilometers below the earth’s surface. Tremors were felt as far away as the Indian capital New Delhi, which is almost 500 kilometers from the epicenter of the quake in Jumla. An hour after the first quake, an aftershock of magnitude 4.0 followed, according to the USGS.
The Himalayan region, in which Nepal is located, is geologically extremely active. There, the Indian continental plate is pushing under the Eurasian plate at a rate of around two centimeters per year – which repeatedly leads to strong earthquakes. In 2015, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 killed almost 9,000 people and injured more than 22,000 people.
There have already been a number of earthquakes around the world this year, for example Morocco experienced an earthquake catastrophe in September. (kiba/dpa)
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